CHAPTER XV.
General Sherman watching Joe Johnston—Foraging—An Attack—The Enemy steals away in the Night—The Conquering Battalions have a brief rest—Encampment on the Big Black River—Scenes there—Reënforces General Rosecrans—Death of General Sherman’s Son—Beautiful Letter—The Monument.
ENERAL SHERMAN was in no haste to strike; he could leisurely watch the foe chafing in the narrow limits of his beleagured ground. Expeditions were sent out in different directions, the gallant troopers destroying railroad tracks, bridges, and culverts, and bringing in supplies from the enemy’s lands and granaries.
July 11th they accidentally found in an old building, carefully packed away, a large library, and various mementos of friendship. A glance revealed the owner. A gold-headed cane bore the inscription, “To Jefferson Davis, from Franklin Pierce.” Precious plunder! The arch traitor has hidden in the quiet country, and in a place which could awaken no suspicion, his valuable library, correspondence, and articles of cherished regard. The excited troopers soon get into the book pile, and volumes, heaps of letters, and handsome canes, are borne as trophies (a new kind of forage) to headquarters. Secession is discovered in many letters, by Northern friends of the treasonable leader, and his right to that proud distinction freely granted. Added to their capture, hundreds of cars were taken from the Confederacy.
On the 13th a heavy fog lay along the river-banks, hiding from each other’s view the opposing armies. Suddenly rebel shouts came through the gloom, and a desperate sortie from their works is made upon General Sherman’s defences. He is ready to meet the shock, and after a brief struggle they stagger back to their intrenchments.
The twilight hour of July 16th brought to a projection of the works rebel bands of music, insulting our troops with “Bonnie Blue Flag,” “My Maryland,” “Dixie’s Land,” and other airs perverted to the service of treason. The next morning’s dawn gave signs of a retreating foe. The fighting Joe Johnston had stolen away, leaving all over Jackson the marks of ruin. The day before—July 15th—the President issued a proclamation for national thanksgiving, on the 6th day of August, for the recent victories.
General Johnston was fairly whipped, and without the awful waste of life a great battle involves. And now followed other bloodless, and yet exciting scenes of war. You might have seen squads of cavalrymen galloping in every direction, in the wake of the retreating foe, and, with axe and torch, laying in ruins bridges and barns, and whatever might serve the cause of rebellion. Of our brave chieftain’s successes to this time, since he dashed forward to Walnut Hills, after the first occupation of Jackson, “the siege of Vicksburg and last capture of Jackson, and dispersion of Johnston’s army, entitle General Sherman to more honor than usually falls to the lot of one man to earn.”
The short period of rest enjoyed by the heroic army was only one of preparation for a more difficult and grander advance. The London Spectator said of the bold and splendid campaign: It comprised “a series of movements which were overlooked at the time, yet upon which hung the safety of two Federal armies—the extraordinary march of General Sherman from Vicksburg to Chattanooga.”
The camp of the Fifteenth Army Corps, during this interlude of marching, lay along the Big Black River, between Jackson and Vicksburg, about twenty miles from the latter. It was acting as guard to all that region against any return movements or raids of the enemy. A glance at the map will show you the exact position.
But there is a history of this and similar encampments which will never be written. In the sultry air and poisonous vapors of the Big Black, officers and men resorted to every possible resource for whiling away the dull hours and cheering the home-sick invalids.
Not unfrequently, in the light of the evening-lamps, the commander-in-chief has amused and interested by the hour a circle of officers gathered about him, with the narratives of his early adventures, presenting, with the vividness of reality, the exciting life among the Indians of Florida and the gold-seekers of California.
But one day there was an unusual stir around the General’s headquarters; for visitors worth more to him than all earthly honors or gold were escorted to his tent, his wife and his son, bearing his own name, had come from their western home, to meet him once more before his long and perilous marches over hostile soil. But the hours of domestic converse and delight flew swiftly by, the farewells were spoken, and the well-guarded visitors went on their homeward way. There was no safeguard against disease lurking in those Southern swamps. The gifted and beautiful boy, unconsciously to all, had been smitten, and a raging fever soon laid him at the gate of death. He had been adopted by the Thirteenth Corps as their pet—a compliment both to him and his father, who was himself the idol of those brave battalions.
How this bereavement affected him and his old veterans, you will know hereafter.
September 22d, General Grant telegraphed him from Vicksburg to send forward immediately a division to reënforce General Rosecrans, who had been defeated by General Bragg at Chickamauga, and was obliged to retreat to Chattanooga, unpursued by his successful enemy. General Rosecrans commanded the Army of the Cumberland, and was now holding the great central stronghold in the vast battle-field between Vicksburg and Charleston. At 4 o’clock of the same day the telegram was read by General Sherman, who is always a minute man. General Osterhaus’ division was on the road to Vicksburg, and the following day “it was streaming toward Memphis.” A day later, and the commander-in-chief received orders to follow with the entire corps. The tents disappeared like dew before the morning sun, and the proud host were following the columns of Osterhaus toward Memphis. Two divisions were transported by water. But the low tide and scarcity of food made their progress slow. The leader was impatient of delay, for he longed to try the metal of his corps against that of General Bragg. He is no fancy commander; but an incarnation of nervous energy, with no display of tinsel in his attire, helping with his own hands to bring in fence-rails to feed the fires, then turning teamster to wagons hauling wood from the interior to the boats.
During the first days of October, while General Osterhaus is in front of Corinth, his boats lie before Memphis.
And amid the absorbing duties of a grand campaign, look into the General’s tent, and you shall see the warrior for a moment lost in the grieving father, and will feel that the scene is, indeed, “a touching episode of the war.” The letter, addressed to the Thirteenth Infantry, and by its officers ordered to be printed for distribution among the soldiers of the regiment, cannot but touch a tender chord in every heart. Stricken father, noble patriot, the hero of uncounted battles; let the nation pause in its admiration of his gallant deeds, to weep with the mourner over the young life that no “bugle note” will awaken.
“Gayoso House, Memphis, Tenn., Oct. 4, Midnight.
“Capt. C. C. Smith, Commanding Battalion Thirteenth Regulars:
“My Dear Friend: I cannot sleep to-night till I record an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to you, and to the officers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind behavior to my poor child. I realize that you all feel for my family the attachment of kindred; and I assure you all of full reciprocity. Consistent with a sense of duty to my profession and office, I could not leave my post, and sent for my family to come to me in that fatal climate, and in that sickly period of the year, and behold the result! The child that bore my name, and in whose future I reposed with more confidence than I did in my own plans of life, now floats a mere corpse, seeking a grave in a distant land, with a weeping mother, brother, and sisters clustered about him. But, for myself I can ask no sympathy. On, on, I must go to meet a soldier’s fate, or see my country rise superior to all factions, till its flag is adored and respected by ourselves and all the powers of the earth.
“But my poor Willy was, or thought he was, a sergeant of the Thirteenth. I have seen his eye brighten and his heart beat as he beheld the battalion under arms, and asked me if they were not real soldiers. Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country, which should animate all soldiers. God only knows why he should die thus young. He is dead, but will not be forgotten till those who knew him in life have followed him to that same mysterious end.
“Please convey to the battalion my heartfelt thanks, and assure each and all that if, in after years, they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regulars, when poor Willy was a sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has—that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust.
“Your friend, W. T. Sherman, Maj.-Gen.”
The noble Thirteenth did not stop in their expressions of sympathy with words. The chieftain went to his war-path, while the sculptor’s chisel was busy on the marble, until it formed a lasting memorial of manly affection cherished by the troops for father and son. Wrote one who saw it in Cincinnati before it was removed to the “silent city:”
“At Rule’s marble works we observed recently a beautiful monument to the memory of Major-General Sherman’s son, who died over a year since, in Memphis, while returning home with his mother from the Black River, where they had been visiting the General, and where, unfortunately, the boy contracted a fever. The monument was made by order of the Thirteenth Regiment of Regular United States Infantry, of which General Sherman was Colonel four years since, and of which his namesake-son, the deceased child, was, by general consent, considered a sergeant, having been elected to that position by the members of the regiment, who were very proud of him. The monument is about two feet square at the base, and six feet high. Above the rough ground base is the marble base, an eight-sided, finely-polished and ornamented block. Upon four of the faces are inscriptions, and upon the other four, between them, the American shield, with its Stripes and Stars. Surmounting the base is a full-sized tenor drum, with straps and sticks complete, and crossed above this two flags of the Union—all in beautiful white marble. The inscriptions are as follows:
“ ‘In Thy Tabernacles I shall dwell forever. I shall be protected under the cover of Thy wing. Psalms l. 1.’
“ ‘Our Little Sergeant Willie—from the First Battalion, Thirteenth United States Infantry.’
“ ‘William Tecumseh Sherman, son of William T. and Ellen E. Sherman. Born in San Francisco, California, June 8, 1854; died in Memphis, Tennessee, October 3, 1863.’
“ ‘In his spirit there was no guile.’
“ ‘Blessed are they undefiled in the way, who walk in the way of the Lord. Psalms cxviii.’ ”